By Jeff Nagel, BC Local News, November 17, 2010
Tankers may someday steam into the mouth of the Fraser River but they will likely carry jet fuel, not oil from Alberta's tar sands.
A proposed aviation fuel terminal in south Richmond just upstream of Deas Island would be the destination for tankers and barges to offload.
The jet fuel would then be carried across Richmond to Vancouver Airport by a new pipeline to meet growing air traffic demand.
Port Metro Vancouver chief financial officer Allan Baydala said the proposal, by the Vancouver Airport Fuel Facilities Corporation, is the only potential project he's aware of that might send fuel tankers up the Fraser.
He was responding to a Vancouver newspaper's story on oil tanker traffic that said tankers may also go upriver but gave no details.
According to the airlines-controlled fuel corporation, the $70-million project would bring one tanker a month and barges every two weeks to the new aviation fuel offloading facility.
Some jet fuel is carried to the airport via an existing pipeline from Burnaby, but it can't keep up with the airport's growth and fuel is increasingly being trucked in from the U.S.
Oil shipments became a contentious issue this summer, in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, when Vancouver council and environmental groups became aware tankers were sailing right under the Lions Gate Bridge, loading up crude piped from the oil sands and carrying it to the U.S. and China.
Georgia Strait Alliance executive director Christianne Wilhelmson said her group hasn't studied the jet fuel proposal in detail but said it's likely of less concern because it's lighter than crude oil.
"Not that a spill is a good thing in either case," she said. "But a crude oil tanker in Burrard Inlet is a far bigger threat to the marine environment than jet fuel. It's a lighter fuel – it won't go to the bottom and sit there."
Kinder Morgan, which operates the Trans Mountain Pipeline that delivers crude oil from northern Alberta to north Burnaby for loading onto tankers, says it has no intention of developing another export terminal on the lower Fraser.
"We have no expansion planned for the Fraser River," said external relations manager Lexa Hobenshield.
Nor has it made any final decision yet on a potential major expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline.
The project, which has alarmed some area politicians, could more than double the capacity of the line, increasing the delivery of crude oil and other petroleum products to as much as 700,000 barrels a day.
The current capacity is 300,000 barrels per day, supplying about 70 tankers a year.
Whether the expansion goes ahead may hinge on whether Enbridge wins approval to build a rival oil pipeline across northern B.C. to Kitimat, a proposal fiercely opposed by environmental groups and First Nations.
Kinder Morgan's expansion will only proceed if there's public support and market demand, Hobenshield said.
It would also be subject to extensive review and federal approval.
The jet fuel terminal and pipeline project in Richmond is still undergoing an environmental assessment and no formal application has been made to the port yet, said Port Metro Vancouver's Baydala.
If the project advances, he said, a specific tanker risk assessment will be required.
The Vancouver Airport Fuel Facilities Corporation has sought to address various questions about the safety of tankers plying the river, such as a scenario where a tanker is disabled.
It says tankers would be double-hulled, guided by professional river pilots and assisted by tugs when docking.
The terminal would be at one of the widest points on the lower river, so even large Panamax-size tankers will be able to turn around, likely assisted by tugs, a project report says.
The corporation says the project is needed because trucking fuel to the airport is inefficient, riskier and generates more greenhouse gas emissions than using a new pipeline.
